(Eighteen year old girl with razor blade wound today in Soleil.)

Cite Soleil is an infamous slum in Port-au-Prince. It supposedly has hundreds of thousands of people…no one knows how many for sure or really cares.

Can you imagine if Peoria and its surrounding communities with hundreds of thousands of people had a 90% unemployment rate, no running water, and no electricity? This is the Soleil situation.

Can you imagine if our number one concern today in Peoria was “finding food” for our children? This is the Soleil situation.

Soleil has one tiny Emergency Department with three stretchers and one physician. Can you imagine if the Emergency Departments and Urgent Care Centers of our four hospitals downsized to three beds staffed by one physician? Who would take care of OUR knife-and-gun club members who are way more active than the Soleil chapter?

This is all unimaginable but is the reality everyday in Cite Soleil.

John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org